Angela D. FriedericiIs Language Development in the Child’s Brain Visible on a Molecular Level?

Angela D. Friederici
Is Language Development in the Child’s Brain Visible on a Molecular Level?

Angela D. Friederici is a member of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. Friederici holds an Honorary Professorship in Psychology at Leipzig University, in Linguistics at the University of Potsdam and in Medicine at the Charité Berlin. Since 2014, Friederici is the Vice-President of the Max Planck Society.
Friederici’s field of expertise is psycholinguistics. Through her interdisciplinary training, she is looking at the representation of language in the brain and how this relates to the overall learning process.

"The Max Planck Society is Germany's most successful research organization. Since its establishment in 1948, no fewer than 18 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The more than 15,000 publications each year in internationally renowned scientific journals are proof of the outstanding research work conducted at Max Planck Institutes – and many of those articles are among the most-cited publications in the relevant field." (Source)

Institute

The aim of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig is to investigate human cognitive abilities and brain processes. The main focus of the research is on the neuronal basis of higher functions of the brain such as speech, music, and action. To this end, the scientists’ primary interest focuses on how these are perceived, processed, planned, and generated, as well as how perception and generation influence each other. They also investigate the plastic changes to the brain after strokes, and how these affect different cognitive abilities. The Department of Neurophysics, which was established in early 2007, is specifically concerned with the use and development of imaging methods for the neurosciences. (Source)

Map

The ability to process complex syntax is a human characteristic. The development of language comprehension and articulation takes place over a certain period of time during childhood. What happens in the brain on a neural biological level during language acquisition is still unclear. The research explained in this video uses methods that detect and monitor brain activity to determine changes and patterns on the scale of milliseconds. This allows to see maturation and to follow connections between different brain areas, helping our understanding of where language develops. ANGELA D. FRIEDERICI illustrates that she and her fellow researchers found a particular fiber track which connects two regions of the brain and is responsible for syntax comprehension. While most animals do not have this fiber track or only a less developed one, the question of language representation can also be expanded as an example of learning processes in the brain in general. The research proves that brain development determines what is possible in terms of learning at the defined moment in life.

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